Wolston man denies hiding nearly £200,000 worth of criminal property

A man said to have made more from drug dealing than his job as a handyman squirreled away his illegal profits by moving cash through his mother’s account, a jury has heard.

Jason Killick’s mother Susan Southern then used the money for the deposit on a property in Costa Rica and to make transfers to accounts he held in foreign banks, it is alleged.

Killick, 44, of The Paddocks, Warwick Road, Wolston, has pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to concealing £197,000 worth of criminal property.

And he and Southern, 63, of Avondale Road, Brandon, have denied being concerned in money-laundering.

Prosecutor Philip Bradley told the jury the charges were the third part of a case which involved the alleged supply of cocaine in the Rugby area.

Killick and Brian Wright, 47, of Market Street, Rugby, have both denied conspiring to supply cocaine between September 2010 and June 2012, and Wright also denies supplying cocaine and possessing it with intent to supply in April 2012.

Mr Bradley said the evidence against Killick, a self-employed handyman, and Wright principally arose from their phone contact with other men who were supplying cocaine in Rugby.

In November 2011 men including John Logue and Khurum Janjua were tried for conspiring to supply drugs in Rugby.

Logue had continued playing a leading role in a conspiracy to supply cocaine, even after being arrested and remanded in custody in November 2010.

The conspiracy involved the ordering and collection of cocaine from Oldham and Sheffield, and there were eight deliveries of the drug to be sold on the streets of Rugby.

Between Logue’s arrest and the end of April 2011 there was a large amount of phone contact between another conspirator, Russell Kirby, and Killick and Wright, mainly around the dates when consignments of cocaine were being collected.

Logue was also in touch with Killick from his prison cell, and Mr Brandley said: “The prosecution case is that that sequence of calls cannot be explained away by coincidence.”

Before Logue’s arrest Killick was his most regularly contacted associate, apart from Logue’s sister and partner, and after the arrest Killick’s contact switched more to Kirby.

When Killick was arrested 2 kilos of amphetamine was found in two blocks in a large outbuilding at the home he shares with his long-term partner.

He said he was storing the larger block for a friend, and that the smaller block was for his own use, and he would mix it with an adulterant in a smoothie mixer before using it.

But the mixer contained traces not of amphetamine, but of cocaine and the adulterant benzocaine.

Officers also found scales with traces of cocaine and metal pressing plates which are used to emboss motifs on compressed powder.

A notebook found in Killick’s bedroom had a list of prices and what appeared to be trading weights of cocaine.

“As to Mr Wright, the prosecution case is that his role was to supply the drugs on the streets when they got there. He was a trusted member of the team, and his number was stored in the phones recovered from Logue, Janjua and Kirby.

“As with Mr Killick, his calls with Kirby appeared to peak at the time of cocaine deliveries.”

On April 2012 the police were observing Wright and stopped a man who was found to have a wrap of cocaine on him.

“The prosecution case is that Mr Wright supplied that wrap of cocaine,” said Mr Bradley.

Wright was then arrested, and at his home officers found a blender with traces of white powder in it, scales, a tin of small re-sealable bags and cocaine worth more than £1,000.

“The prosecution case is that it was not for personal use, but for selling on,” said Mr Bradley, who pointed out that one of the amounts of cocaine found there was from the same batch as that found from the man who the police had stopped.

Mr Bradley said the final part of the case involved Killick and his mother Southern.

Killick’s declared income as a self-employed builder/handyman was obtained from HMRC and amounted to £89,392 over a period from, 2003 to 2012.

“During the period investigated, £286,411 went into his bank accounts. This amounted to £197,000 more than his declared income. The prosecution case is that these payments are the proceeds of organised crime; they are drugs money.”

Mr Bradley posed the question: “What does that have to do with his mum?

“The allegation against Susan Southern is that she concerned herself in the payment of a deposit on a property in Costa Rica, knowing or suspecting it involved her son’s criminal property; and she was similarly concerned in the transfer of other monies from the UK.”

There was also a record of around £13,000 being paid into Southern’s account between October 2006 and April 2007 when a further £5,000 in cash was paid in.

And at the end of the month a $35,000 payment was made as the deposit on a property in Costa Rica.

Killick also put other large sums of cash into his mother’s account, and she then transferred similar amounts to accounts he held in the United States and Costa Rica.

“That money was being put through those accounts as a conduit for payments because it meant Mr Killick, in his eyes, had a better chance of squirreling away the proceeds of his crime,” added Mr Bradley. The trial continues.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Rugby Advertiser provides news, events and sport features from the Rugby area. For the best up to date information relating to Rugby and the surrounding areas visit us at Rugby Advertiser regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Rugby Advertiser requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.